


The Gods of Gallifrey

by Miss_Mahlzahn



Category: Doctor Who, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Bedside Vigils, First Person Narrator (The Doctor), Gen, Headcanon, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sappy, Unbeta'ed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:07:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26192398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Mahlzahn/pseuds/Miss_Mahlzahn
Summary: Sitting at Donna's sickbed and unable to help, the Doctor finds himself somehow pleading for a miracle.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	The Gods of Gallifrey

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say *spreads arms* - I am a sucker for the mental image of Aziraphale's unguarded presence driving (even very long-lived) mortals to their knees.  
> Non-native writer, unbeta'ed.  
> Author is a glutton for comments ;-)

After - oh how I envied you your Gods then.

Our Gods are different. They are more abstract. You might not call them Gods at all. 

Time, Pain and Death are Concepts, laminated from the billions and billions of ideas. There are others, but these three are unchallenged, even for the most neglectful commoner.

Death is the most sombre one. We teach about Death, so that our children will always remember that everything that lives will die eventually, be it the slight death of regeneration or the final death after it. Billions and billions of minds share the concept of death, and these billions of concepts give Death a Person of its own. We do not fear Death, and we strive not to fear death, but to accept it. We invoke Her to remember Her, neither adore not curse Her. When we worship Her, we do not praise her but acknowledge Her. Some of us, some strange few, adore Her, want to serve Her and glorify Her, but they are twisted minds.

Time, oh, Time is magnificent, mighty and unstoppable and utterly beautiful. Time stops for nobody, not even for us, but Time also heals all wounds, in the end. Time is mighty, but also vulnerable: There is one Cardinal Sin for my people: To create a Paradox. Most of us venerate Time, and our Imprimatur calls us to be Her Champions, striving to untangle Her and Heal Her and Keep Her Safe. Oh yes, my People are called to protect our Gods. Those who are the most valiant among Her Champions, She might even gift them with small favours. I myself was at times an ardent Champion of Her, and I was rewarded more than any other, and I still cherish Her and want to guard Her, but maybe I’m a lapsed follower, since keeping Her pure and untangled is not always my first impulse anymore. Maybe I have gone native? 

Now, Pain is the one of the Three that is the most intimate, and the one we experience more closely than the other Two. Life is Pain, as we are taught early on. Pain Himself is not Cruel, He simply is there, but He also doesn’t take pity. Sometimes He can be Kind, when He lets you forget Him. But most of us would never consider being a Champion of Pain. Again, some twisted minds worship Him and want to flood the universe in Him, but we also have highly venerated mystics who contemplate Him in order to be able to accept Him more willingly. 

These are our Gods, the most prominent Three. Not even small children pray to them. We might petition Time, we might offer Death a deal when most desperate, and we might accept Pain, but none of us would – not the sane ones, anyway – would ever beg our Gods for strength, or hope, or forgiveness. 

But I am weak, I am full of despair and I am so very sorry. I could do with some strength, hope and forgiveness. Donna helped, a lot. But now Donna is dying, and I have tried everything, and when nothing helped, I found myself turning to the Three. My Lady caressed me and kissed me and she gave me a handful of hours, for which I am distantly grateful. When I turned to Him, he showed me dispassionately all the gifts he had already bestowed on me, all the times He had faded from my mind, and I knew that He would not help me. And so I supplicated the Last, and offered Her a regeneration, offered all my remaining regenerations. But Death didn’t even deign to acknowledge my plea.

I, all of me, have never been devout, not for the Three, not for any other. Too sceptical, too rational, and – truth be told – more often than not too proud to beg. Don’t get me wrong, this incarnation, too, is full to the brim with pride, proud to find a way out, always, because I am the Doctor, right? But this pride, for once, is drained.

So you see why I envy you, that so many of you can have faith against all reason, because Donna is dying, and there is nothing I can do, and I cannot bear to lose her, selfish as I am, so I want to throw myself on the ground and beg for help.

I cry out to the Gods I don't believe in, to the Gods you have built temples to, shrines and cathedrals, all while helplessly sitting next to Donna’s bed.  
Please, I cry silently, all You Merciful Deities of Earth, please show your mercy, just once, only once, just one miracle. 

We are in a hospital, before Fleming, before Semmelweis, and there are no more resources at all which I could use, not even clean water!

Just one miracle, I beg, as millions and millions beg every day, and there is no reason why my plea should be more important than the other millions and millions, which have been unheeded - as will be mine.

But then the miracle happens, because there is a man, a priest, who has been tending to all the poor souls in here since we arrived, and when he nears I can feel that he is not a human, or at least not only a human, and at first he focuses on Donna, takes her hand and closes his eyes, but then he is startled and looks at me, and he knows that I’m not human, not at all human, and his eyes widen.

He turns to me, faces me fully, and I am suddenly on my knees, drowning in awe and quivering to my very core with terror. This little priest, this pudgy, harmless man, is at the same time a giant, mighty and terrible, a maelstrom of light.

But then the terror stops, because this being commands me TO FEAR NOT, without words, and my anxiety is taken away, and the blinding tower of white collapses and now it’s just the kindly smiling little priest next to Donna’s bed, and I get up and wobble a bit on my feet and sit down heavily on my chair again.

The little priest brings another chair and sits next to us. He glances over to Donna, and something happens, and Donna, who has been burning up with fever, sighs contentedly.

“I think her fever has broken!”, the little man beams to me, and being this close to her I can actually feel the infinitesimal decrease in her temperature.

Relief floods through me, spreads from my middle outwards. I sag in my chair, feeling very small and very thankful, because he did this, and I don’t care that it’s unfair, that only Donna gets help, I don’t care for once, I am just thankful and relieved.

He gets up and slowly makes a round through the room, while I compose myself enough to check on Donna properly, discreetly using the screwdriver. The readout confirms what I already know: She is better – temperature falling, viral count falling, breathing easing up slightly.

After a while, I turn around to look for the miracle worker, somehow expecting him to have vanished without a trace.

But he is not, he is still making his round. I focus on the other patients in the room, and I find many of those he has already visited to show improvements. Now, finally, I try to get a readout for him, although something in me feels this to be improper, somehow. The readout is useless – he has a human body, a human metabolism, a human age, but of course the screwdriver is a simple machine, no sentient component at all, and therefor incapable of telling me the truth. For this man is not human, that I am sure of. The only thing the readout tells me: He is of no other species that I know of, as well, nor of any I could possibly conceive, given the physical data of his body.

Of course, there are also the psychic effects. Never before has anything evoked such intense fear and awe in me. But I don’t feel violated, he has not touched my mind. My initial feelings were my own reaction to his unguarded presence, which he reined in almost immediately, thus draining the terror. 

I think.  
Maybe not.  
I have been duped before.

But Donna is better, and so are the others, and anyone less cynical than me would thank whoever answered my plea, and be content without understanding.

For more than an hour, he circles, and the few times I cannot detect any improvement on the patients he visits, I see his shoulders sag and his head lower and he waits for some moments until he walks on. 

Then, finally, he is done.

Again, I expect him to vanish, or at least, to slip away quietly, leaving my curiosity unsatisfied.

But no, he returns to Donna’s side, smoothing a strain of hair from her forehead and sitting down in one gracious movement.  
He looks tired, but his smile is open and unbridled.

“I’m sure she will be alright!”, he says softly.

“Thank you”, I want to say, but instead I ask: “What are you?”

The priest’s smile turns a bit sad, but he doesn’t frown.

“I am not sure if your culture recognizes angels”, he starts, then hesitates.

An angel! This would actually be a good fit to explain what has happened, were I one of the temporals and locals. But I am not and how does he know that, anyway?

He squints at me and presses his lips together.

“What are *you*?”, he returns my question, “You’re not human, but you’re definitively of the material plane.”

“I am a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey, in the Casterbourus Constellation”, I answer truthfully.

“Oh, of course, an alien!”, he smiles again. “Unfortunately, I am very unfamiliar with the rest of the universe. I wish Crowley was here…”, he adds quietly.

“So, you are an angel?”, I ask, because maybe, he will answer.

The priest nods: “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am a Principality, but I don’t expect you to be familiar with angelic hierarchies, or anything ethereal, really.”

Actually, I am, since a particular boring stint in medieval times with only a half-rotten book to keep me company in a rather wet dungeon. But I only answer with a short “Ah!” and then I blurt out “I have met the devil once, you know.”

The priest raises his eyebrows in surprise. “You have? What is he li… ah, no,”, he sounds rather curious before he stops himself, “I am pretty sure Satan has never been to the material plane.”

Again, I shrug. I know what I’ve seen. But what am I seeing now?

“You are a messenger of a bona fide god?”, I ask, just to make sure we are talking about the same thing.

The priest considers this. “Not so much a messenger, more of a servant, but yes, of the Almighty – albeit not necessarily a very good one. So many in here alone I couldn’t help. So many more out there.” At the last syllable, his voice hoarsens a bit and his eyes close shortly only for him to take a big breath and stand up again. “Might as well try to see to them, now.” 

He takes another long look at Donna, who is sleeping soundly. “She is a long way from home, isn’t she? May she be blessed on her further travels and may the Lord guard her on her way.” The last bit is whispered, but emphatic. Then the little man looks at me, and I feel the need to stand up, as well.

“Look at you, so full of anger and sadness and yet so brave.” He smiles. “Oh, how I would love to stay and talk to you, and maybe I could introduce you to Crowley, and you could tell us about your home. I would like that very much. Well, maybe on day. Until then, be blessed on your way, and if we won’t meet before, be comforted in your time of despair.”

He raised his hand slightly and waved his goodbyes, and then left us to venture outside. I was about to follow him, but again, it didn’t feel appropriate. So I stayed with Donna, musing about the little priest or angel or whatever he was. And although the last bit he said sounded rather ominous, I think I would rather enjoy meeting him again. Maybe one day, as they say, the Gods willing.

But then again, I haven’t been a champion of my Lady for a long time, and our Gods hardly ever grant wishes.


End file.
